The two day Nagi of Mekong Slow Boat Cruise from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang in Laos lasted about 2 and a half weeks! It all started when we were researching options for getting from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang in the most painless way. Without resorting to flying of course.

A lot of guidebook and Internet use later, we had way too much information on the process. Check out our post here about the many ways you can get from Chiang Mai / Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang. There are so many ways.

In the end, we contacted the Nagi of Mekong Slow Boat Cruise. From now on, just called Nagi for ease of writing. For the next few posts we will be talking about our slow boat adventure on the Mekong and reviewing the Nagi at the same time.

Pre Day 1 on the Nagi of Mekong Slow Boat Cruise

Contacting the Nagi Slow Boat Company was easy as pie. On their website the information for the cruise was easy to read and comprehensive. Contact details for the manager – Adisak Star – were easy to find. An email address, telephone number and an option to contact via skype.

We contacted Adisak via email and asked if the Nagi Cruise would be operating when we wanted to go. Luckily for us, yes. Low season was coming up us but the cruises were still running on their regular schedule.

Adisak provided further information about the cruise, what we needed to bring with us, where we would be staying overnight in Pakbeng, and what we need for Laos immigration.

Adisak asked us where we would be staying in Chiang Khong or Huay Xai, as he would get a driver to pick us up from our guest house / hotel. We provided the accommodation details as well as our passport numbers, a mobile phone number and were booked on the Nagi slow boat cruise. Excited!

Finally, the time had arrived and we made our way up to Chiang Khong. And checked into our guest house – Baanrimtaling Home Stay. On our arrival at the home stay, we were given paperwork for our Laos visas to complete. Adisak, the manager of Nagi, had dropped it off for us the night before. How nice.

We gathered up our paperwork, dropped our bags off in our room and checked out Chiang Khong. It's a small but pleasant town. On our return, the owner of Baanrimtaling told us that Adisak had called at around 6pm to make sure that we had arrived safely and to confirm that we would be picked up at 7:50am sharp.

Although we have long since graduated from backpackers to flashpackers, we were not used to the wonderful treatment we were receiving from the Nagi of Mekong Slow Boat Cruise company. We donned our “we are so special” caps and enjoyed the five star ride.

Completing the Laos Immigration Paperwork at Baanrimtaling Home Stay in Chiang Khong

Hi Martin, being on a slow boat watching the world go by was certainly enjoyable. I am not sure how many days I could put up with though. Two 8 hour days on a boat was enough for me! Hopefully you will enjoy our posts over the next few days 🙂